Texas Taliban

When I was Texas - never mind when - it was legal to drive with an open drink and, of course, a loaded gun. They had drive-up bars where you could buy your drink and then drive off and slurp it down. I can't say that I ever took advantage of the laws - much - I guess I do recall having open drinks while a passenger to Mexico or elsewhere (Never got to 'boys town', either, wherever that was). But I never drove myself while intoxicated. That's the important thing.

Now in Texas the police are actually going inside of bars to arrest people who are drunk. You see, bars are public places and you can't be drunk inside of a barbecause it's a public place. On the TV article I saw about this they showed the Texas police who arrested a woman who was a guest at the hotel whose bar she was drinking at. It didn't matter. She got arrested anyways.
Some guy got arrested while protesting that he had a designated driver. And that didn't matter, either.

Exactly how hard do you think it really is to find somebody drunk inside a Texas bar? Just take a little time to think about that.

Give up?

It's not f****g hard at all! That's shooting fish in a barrel. In fact, not just in Texas but pretty much any place in America, period. At a rough guess I'd say a minimum of half of all Americans have been drunk in public and that's probably being way conservative. There aren't enough police to arrest all of us criminals and there aren't enough jails to hold us all. And that means that there are about one hundred million Americans who are on the lam, because they never properly got caught for the crimes - public intoxication - that they committed.

We should all turn ourselve in and see what happens.

Banning smoking in bars I kind of understand - kind of. Bartenders and waiters and waitresses and stockboys and bar backs and musicians work there and they shouldn't be exposed to cancer causing second hand smoke blah, blah, blah. Fine. Bars aren't health clubs and they also aren't a Disney theme park, and adults should understand just what kind of place they're walking into ... but I don't smoke anymore so ... fine. No smoking in bars.

No drinking in bars? Hmmm. Don't tell me that drinking isn't the same thing as getting drunk because if you have ever been into a tavern you really should know better, so just don't pretend that you're so holy and pure. No, no. I seldom do those wicked things - used to, not lately - and I'm probably never going to return to Texas (friendly people, way too hot). Thus I have no dogs in this fight but it just offends my sensibility.

What about the kids? That's my question. They aren't going to have the opportunities to go wild and blow off steam if this type of thing goes further than Texas. Can you imagine MTV Spring break if Florida enforced their public intoxication laws? My worry is that the next generation is going to grow up boring and is that a risk we as a nation should take?